Glycoprotein-enriched vesicles from sheep erythrocyte ghosts obtained by spontaneous vesiculation

Sheep erythrocyte membranes have been shown in this laboratory to undergo spontaneous vesiculation when incubated at 4 degrees, fractionating into two bands in dextran gradients (R. McGuire and R. Barber, submitted for publication). While vesicles were observed to be formed in several solvent systems, incubation in the presence of complexors to remove divalent cations was found to be the most efficient method for both vesicle formation and their detachment from the residual membrane. We report here on the characterization of these vesicles formed by spontaneous vesiculation. In the presence of a hypotnoic buffer containing 1 mM EDTA, vesicle production proceeds linearly up to 50 hours and declines, reaching its maximum at 72 hours with up to 20% of the total membrane protein found in the upper band. This upper band is shown in electron micrographs to be composed chiefly of closed vesicles, while the particles in the lower band appear morphologically similar to the original ghosts. Total phospholipid phosphorus and cholesterol in the vesicles are enriched to the same extent, giving a lipid to protein ratio of 2 times that found for whole ghosts. The vesicles contain the same individual phospholipids as the ghosts. The protein composition of these vesicles is unique, in that they are almost depleted in the known extrinsic membrane proteins, while containing practically all types of the various glycoproteins of the original membrane. The two main intrinsic membrane proteins (with apparent molecular weights of 160,000 and 100,000) are found almost exclusively in the vesicles, virtually depleted in the residual ghost-like particles. The protein with 160,000 molecular weight is shown here to be a glycoprotein, giving an anomalous molecular weight on sodium dodecyl sulfate gels and having a molecular weight of approximately 50,000 after lipid extraction. This same glycoprotein appears to fractionate with acetylcholinesterase. From the accessibilities of the substrates to the membrane acetylcholinesterase and NADH-diaphorase, it is concluded that the vesicles are right-side-out and sealed to small molecules. There are more membrane sialic acid residues accessible to neuraminidase in the vesicles (in terms of number of residues/mg og membrane protein) than in ghosts, further supporting the conclustion that these vesicles have a normal orientation and are enriched in glycoproteins. The specific activity of acetylcholinesterase in the vesicles is increased 5- to 6-fold over that found in the original ghosts and almost 20-fold over that in the residual ghost-like particles. Consequently, spontaneous vesiculation occurs simultaneously with the enrichement of specific membrane proteins in certain regions of the lipid bilayer. It is postulated that these domains in the membrane, containing clusters of specific intrinsic membrane proteins, bud out and subsequently release glycoprotein-enriched lipid vesicles.